Wonderland by Zoje Stage

Author:Zoje Stage
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2020-07-13T23:00:00+00:00

“Take your brother to your room and don’t come out! And shut the door!”

Her urgency summoned Eleanor Queen from her trance, and she grabbed Tycho’s hand and ran. Orla didn’t want them to go back to his room, look out his window and get an even more direct view of what she’d seen by the garage. Could it get in the house? Climb the stairs?

She called to Eleanor Queen’s closed door as she raced past, “Don’t open it! Stay until I come to get you!”

Tycho whimpered, but Orla didn’t have time to soothe him. She almost stumbled on her way down the stairs but corrected her balance by reaching out to the wall on either side of the staircase. She flew into Shaw’s studio, flung open his closet door. The fucking gun locker; she’d hoped to never see it again. The combination took no effort to recall; it was her own birthday, backward. She’d insisted when Shaw set it that she’d never need to open it, but even then the words had sounded empty, uttered by her city-self, who no longer counted. Now she wished with her entire gun-hating heart that Shaw had given her more than the most basic verbal instructions; they’d yet to have the actual lesson she’d asked for.

The rifle, she remembered, was for shooting larger game, especially from a distance. The shotgun was for birds and (suicides) smaller things that might scamper away. But Orla didn’t trust her ability to aim, to hold the gun steady if the creature turned on her. She grabbed the double-barreled shotgun, cracked it open—more confidently than she had the night before—and shoved in two shells. Shaw had warned her about the kickback; she’d have to cram it tight against her shoulder, but at least a shaky aim wouldn’t matter so much. The thing outside was huge.

She bolted out the front door, leaving it shuddering in her wake as it crashed against the wall. Her strong legs helped her leap off the porch and land effortlessly in the snow. Boots. Sweaters. A part of her had known, and she was ready. She slowed down only when she was halfway between the house and the garage, then brought the shotgun to her shoulder.

The polar bear, which had been sniffing around the footprints Shaw had left in the snow behind the trapped car, reared up on its hind legs as it caught her approach. It opened its ferociously fanged mouth and made an angry sound, a roar of surprise and warning. The beast looked scraggly, not like the polar bears she’d seen in photographs, plump in their luminescent fur. She could see the bear’s ribs through its too-thin chest. In another circumstance—had it been a photo in National Geographic revealing the impact of global warming on starving predators—she might have pitied it.

“Shaw!” Orla tried to peer around the bear. Oh God, was she too late? The shovel was still there, abandoned in the snow. She feared Shaw was lying somewhere out of sight in a pool of blood, his innards exposed and half eaten.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.